Large organizations may operate many different physical locations around a city, state, country, or even around the world. In order to provide real-time data and voice connectivity between locations, a number of wide area network (“WAN”) links may be established. The WAN links can be utilized to support data communications between the locations, including audio and/or audio/video sessions made between client devices placed at the locations. For instance, voice over Internet protocol (“VoIP”) calls may be made between clients placed at various locations connected by one or more WAN links. Similarly, video calls might also be made between clients placed at locations connected by WAN links.
In some real-time communications installations, a mediation server is utilized to mediate signaling and to translate media to and from other types of networks such as a public switched telephone network (“PSTN”) or a cellular network. For instance, a mediation server may interface with a PSTN gateway to provide private branch exchange (“PBX”) interoperability. The mediation server may provide signaling and media translation functionality to allow calls to be placed on and received from the PSTN.
Because a mediation server can add latency and increase the possibility of data packet loss, some real-time communications installations utilize a media bypass feature. The media bypass feature allows a mediation server to be removed from the media path (“bypassed”) under certain conditions. By removing the mediation server from the media path, the latency added by the mediation server can be avoided, packet loss can be reduced, and in some network configurations a costly round-trip to the mediation server can be avoided. It can be difficult, however, to determine when it is appropriate to bypass the mediation server.
It is with respect to these and other considerations that the disclosure made herein is presented.